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Gender Gaps in Unemployment Rates in OECD Countries

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Author Info
Ghazala Azmat
Maia Guell
Alan Manning

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Abstract

There is an enormous literature on gender gaps in pay and labour market participation but virtually noliterature on gender gaps in unemployment rates. Although there are some countries in which there isessentially no gender gap in unemployment, there are others in which the female unemployment rate issubstantially above the male. Although it is easy to give plausible reasons for why more women than menmay decide not to want work, it is not so obvious why, once they have decided they want a job, women insome countries are less likely to be in employment than men. This is the subject of this paper. We showthat, in countries where there is a large gender gap in unemployment rates, there is a gender gap in bothflows from employment into unemployment and from unemployment into employment. We investigatedifferent hypotheses about the sources of these gaps. Most hypotheses find little support in the data and thegender gap in unemployment rates (like the gender gap in pay) remains largely unexplained. But it doesseem to correlate with attitudes on whether men are more deserving of work than women so thatdiscrimination against women may explain part of the gender gap in unemployment rates in theMediterranean countries.

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Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0607.

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Date of creation: Jan 2004
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Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0607

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Related research
Keywords: Gender Gap Unemployment Rates

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  3. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Diamond, Peter A, 1994. "Ranking, Unemployment Duration, and Wages," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 61(3), pages 417-34, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Katharine G. Abraham & Robert Shimer, 2001. "Changes in Unemployment Duration and Labor Force Attachment," NBER Working Papers 8513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Flinn, Christopher J & Heckman, James J, 1983. "Are Unemployment and Out of the Labor Force Behaviorally Distinct Labor Force States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 28-42, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Abowd, John M & Zellner, Arnold, 1985. "Estimating Gross Labor-Force Flows," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 254-83, June.
  7. Christopher J. Ruhm, 1998. "The Economic Consequences Of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons From Europe," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(1), pages 285-317, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Pierre Cahuc & Yann Algan, 2004. "Job protection and family policies : The Macho hypothesis," 2004 Meeting Papers 332, Society for Economic Dynamics. [Downloadable!]
  9. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. John C. Ham & Jan Svejnar & Katherine Terrell, 1999. "Women's unemployment during transition," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 7(1), pages 47-78, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 147-162, January.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ira N. Gang & John Landon-Lane & Ralitza Dimova, 2006. "Where to Work? The Role of the Household in explaining Gender Differences in Labour Market Outcomes," Departmental Working Papers 200623, Rutgers University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Daniela Del Boca & Robert M. Sauer, 2006. "Life Cycle Employment and Fertility Across Institutional Environments," IZA Discussion Papers 2285, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2005. "The Roots of Low European Employment: Family Culture?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5169, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Petrongolo, Barbara, 2004. "Gender Segregation in Employment Contracts," CEPR Discussion Papers 4303, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Olivetti, Claudia & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2006. "Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps," CEPR Discussion Papers 5506, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Vendrik,Maarten C.M. & Schwieren,Christiane, 2005. "Identification, screening and stereotyping in labor market discrimination," Research Memoranda 013, Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization. [Downloadable!]
  7. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
  8. Pablo Branas-Garza, 2004. "Church attendance in Spain (1930-1992): Gender differences and secularization," Economics Bulletin, Economics Bulletin, vol. 26(1), pages 1-9. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Herve Queneau & Amit Sen, 2007. "Evidence Regarding Persistence in the Gender Unemployment Gap Based on the Ratio of Female to Male Unemployment Rate," Economics Bulletin, Economics Bulletin, vol. 5(23), pages 1-10. [Downloadable!]
  10. Carlos Gradín & Olga Cantó & Coral del Río, 2006. "Poverty and Women’s Labor Market Activity: the Role of Gender Wage Discrimination in the EU," Working Papers 40, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality. [Downloadable!]
  11. Pierre-Carl Michaud & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2005. "Employment Dynamics of Married Women in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 1706, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. Ana Carolina Ortega Masagué, 2006. "El diferencial entre las tasas de desempleo de hombres y mujeres en Argentina," Working Papers 2006-08, FEDEA. [Downloadable!]
  13. B Petrongolo, 2004. "Gender Segregation in Employment Contracts," CEP Discussion Papers dp0637, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
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